Benefits: Increase in reach
Some organisations are changing their websites, but many are seemingly not making the adjustments. Disabled people don't access their website, they say, so why should they care?
Why you should care about blind and disabled Internet users
The statistics on the number of users who may face difficulties using your website are quite startling:
- There are 8.6 million registered disabled people in the UK - 14% of the population 22
- One in 12 men and one in 200 women have some form of colour blindness - 9% of the UK population 23
- Two million UK residents have a sight problem - 4% of the population 24
- There are 12 million people aged 60 or over - 21% of the UK population 25
Although there is inevitably some overlap between all of the aforementioned groups, adding up these numbers provides a total of 48% of the UK population that could potentially face problems using your website. That's an extraordinarily high number.
It's not just disabled users who can't access your website
Non-disabled people may also experience difficulties using your website. Not everyone is viewing your website on the latest version of Internet Explorer, with all the plug-ins and programs that you may require them to have for optimal access.
If your website relies on images, Flash or JavaScript, and fails to provide alternatives, then a number of web users will be unable to access your website . The following examples are a common occurrence:
- WebTV , mobile phones , and PDAs have limited support for large images, Flash and JavaScript. You can test your website on WebTV by downloading the free WebTV viewer.
- Users on slow connections may turn images off to enable a quicker download time. Some browsers, such as the text-only Lynx browser do not display images at all.
- Not every user has downloaded the latest Flash program that is needed to display your site. Additionally, the download time on Flash websites often takes so long that users lose patience and don't even wait to see the content. As of March 2004 just 25% of web users in the UK were connected to the Internet via broadband.
- JavaScript is a scripting language that can cause changes to a page, often through mouse functions, buttons, or other actions from the user. For example, pop-ups are opened using JavaScript. JavaScript is unsupported by about 6% of web users 27 , either because they have turned it off to prevent pop-up adverts or because their browser doesn't support it.
